kawaisou na faye
by invocations
Summary: Faye receives a video tape. Set within episode 18, Speak Like A Child.


**kawaisou na faye**

"Fine then, I won't see it."

Faye _had_ meant her disinterest in seeing the videotape when she sashayed away from Jet's brusque voice and idle threats, enjoying the even tapping of her boots on the Bebop floor. To her, it seems harmonious, authoritative- she clacks them louder than she should on the metal floor with her head held high. It wasn't as if they would get the stupid device working, and why should she care about a nondescript black beta tape, anyway, even if it _was_ addressed to her? The chunk of plastic is ancient, and even after Ed's singsong explanation she has only a vague idea of what it is. It now pesters her- that achy head-sense one feels when taught something once learned. It is hard to push the thought away through the drone of the television static.

She makes herself tap-tap away without looking back, and only when she reaches the tunnel does she throw one practised contemptuous glance over her shoulder. She places a hand on her hip and sets her mouth in a hard line. The only thing of note is the green letters "PLAY" amongst a sea of static. The buzzing of the television melts into a whine, and with an electronic burp it disappears. The metallic rhythm she kept falters as images of an unknown (_yet known_) city flicker across the screen.

"Uh! We got picture!" she hears Jet crow in delight. She hears Ed scoot towards Jet, the pneumatic wheeze of cushions as Spike plants himself on the couch without comment.

"Oooooh, what's that? Oohlookwhat'sthat?" Ed warbles at the fuzzy cityscape, shaking Jet by the arm. Jet flits an impatient, distracted glance at her.

"Shh! Watch and see."

_Do I know this? _she queries the aching throb in her head as the video focuses on a merlion fountain spewing clean water. And just as quickly, her confused expression passes into a composed smirk with a carefully plucked eyebrow raised at the flickering screen. She hopes the confidence fools any onlooker and after a few seconds justifies that she was merely shocked that Jet is actually adept at more things than watering bonsais. All the same, she strides into the tunnel and out of view- then feels a burst of shame as she quickly pads back to the opening and peers around.

She sees a pale seashell nestled in a girl's palm. The rest of the Bebop crew, she notes, are draped on the couch, watching intently. She allows herself a small smirk at their rare, rapt quietness. A shadow moves across the hand onscreen, and the image cuts to a group of five girls, lined up for the camera. One makes a "V" with her fingers, the others titter nervously. Faye's smile fades when a teenage girl with indigo hair shuffles with hands a-flutter, wringing, twisting, and covering her face in adolescent embarrassment. Faye fingers her own indigo hair absently, not even having to look at it to know that it was the same unmistakeable hair colour. She freezes when the teenager makes the same movement, and she quickly withdraws her hand and clutches it to her side as if to erase the resemblance.

She won't admit she half-knows about this girl's identity. Her mind scrambles for justifications, explanations, and the best conclusion it arrives at is that it could be another girl onscreen, for Faye doesn't remember this giggly girl with the cheery eyes. Or does she?

The girl onscreen clears her throat and places her hands behind her back. "Oh, well, um...We're here because, um. Well we all decided that we'd send ourselves a message ten years in the future," her words tumble out. The girls collapse into helpless laughter and clutch at their mouths to keep it in, and the indigo-haired girl rounds on them.

"Oh, come on guys! Don't laugh!" she whines with the effort of someone attempting to take the task seriously. Another cut, and the laughing stranger is alone onscreen, unsmiling, blinking heavily with a flush seeping into her cheeks. Faye's head pounds even louder and grows light, so much so that she doesn't register the shocked silence from the rest of the Bebop crew. She had thought herself invisible to them in the hallway, half-hidden by the partition some distance behind them and so had promptly dismissed them from her sphere of awareness. From the couch, Spike peers askance at her. The sardonic twitch of his lips is not as unreadable as usual- a vestige of sadness and pity meld together as he compares the girl's lineaments to that of Faye, and he turns back to the screen without a word.

She doesn't notice. She twists her hair around her fingers, letting it fall.

"Uh, well…this is making me really shy!" the girl onscreen confides, a shy smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She runs a hand through her hair and covers her face. A pause, and she directs her voice to an imperceptible presence off-screen, "Eh? Something I want to say?" She clutches her hands tightly, and stares at her feet. "Um...ah...Good morning." This elicits a new bout of tittering, and the girl looks exasperated. "No, wait!" she says, running and laughing with hands outstretched, stopping the camera.

Faye watches these antics with her mind like a switchboard, tiny bulbs lighting up but making no connections. Is this really her, this pre-pubescent girl with tumbling words and writhing hands? She would usually sneer at such behaviour, but her mouth is slightly open, her eyes heavy-lidded and glazed. She can't bring herself to mentally name her "that giggling twit", though she would normally vocalise these sentiments to the mallrats on Jupiter in her derisive twang.

The scene changes, and she finds herself looking at a simple room with the morning light filtering through. The hardened part of her mind scoffs as the girl wakes up in the bed and yawns- a scene clearly staged.

"Good morning, me," she says. Faye's mind had nothing to say. Nothing is good when you have WANTED posters with your picture on it, nothing is good when you don't have a past, nothing is good when you can't remember what happened to this stranger who may or may not be you...

"Did you sleep well?" She hasn't slept well for as long as she can remember.

"And did you wake up feeling good?" The wrong side is the one she continues to get out on.

"Did the light and the wind and the smell and the sound- all seem like they're brand new and fresh this morning?" _Same shit, different day,_ Faye snorts to herself.

"Is each and every cell in your body awake now?" She doesn't want to be awake.

"Today, you are who you are today, see?" she says simply, leaving no room for dispute.

_But who am I? Poker Alice? Compulsive gambler, untouchable shrew woman who just won't quit? Faye Valentine- that isn't even me. _

The stranger onscreen interrupts her thoughts, as if Faye could hear. "You're still me, but you're a newer version." She says this firmly, an indisputable fact.

"Myself ten years from now... It's so far away it's almost impossible to imagine!" _And I can't even begin to imagine what you were like._

"Am I alone? Or is there a wonderful person next to me?" Faye clutches the wall a little harder, and for her, the image on the screen blurs a little.

"Well, knowing me, I'm sure you're causing all kinds of trouble for a lot of different people. I'm sorry, you don't mean to. But it's all right. That's part of life too, isn't it? You're not perfect, but you gotta lot to give, so, remember. I'll always be cheering you on." She is stunned by the big-heartedness of the girl- her easy forgiveness, her acceptance- and with the last statement, a tear slips down. Where is this part of her, if it really is her? Why can't she remember?

Spike nudges Jet and the latter smiles sadly. Ed looks puzzled at the exchange. She claps a little when the scene changes once more, to the girl wearing a cheerleading outfit, and promptly forgets the strange sadness in the air.

"And now a big cheer- from my heart." The girl curtseys, and Faye's eyes widen.

"Let's…go…me! All _right_!" The girl bounces with an unselfconscious enthusiasm. She punctuates the end of every sentence with a thrust and shake of her pom-poms, and with each carefree move, Faye feels her chest cave in a little.

"Do your best, do your best! Don't lose me! Let's go, don't lose, don't lose me! Do your best! Do your best! Me, me, me!

"Don'tcha lose, don'tcha lose, me, me, me! Goooooo…me!" The girl twirls the pom-poms one last time, and Faye feels she has lost too much. She is a disappointment to this girl from the past- she is sure of it. She murmurs something near incomprehensible-_I can't remember_ - and for a moment she can't see through the tears.

The image splutters and stills on the stranger's earnest face. "In your time, I'm no longer here- but, I am here today, and I'll always be cheering for you, right here...Cheering for you, my only self."

The tape announces its end with a fuzz of static, and she picks at her eyes fiercely with her fingertips. When Jet turns around to look at Faye, she is already composed- she tips him a shaky wink and saunters away.


End file.
